


got all my attention fixed on you (and you're just where you said you'd be)

by nevermordor



Category: One Piece
Genre: Asexual Character, Biting, Canon-Typical Violence, Friends to Lovers, M/M, this is honestly just luffy being a dumb asexual for roughly 7k
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-10-19
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:27:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27091249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nevermordor/pseuds/nevermordor
Summary: Luffy looks again at the bitemarks that he left on Zoro’s wrist. Zoro’s usually hurt, one way or another. Sometimes it’s definitely been Luffy’s fault too, but the bitemarks feel different. They ain’t like normal bruises or cuts. There’s something about seeing the shape of his teeth in Zoro’s skin. Something about the colors, the slightly paler insides of Zoro’s wrists, and the blueness of his veins, and the dark pink color of where Luffy bit him.
Relationships: Monkey D. Luffy/Roronoa Zoro
Comments: 25
Kudos: 210





	1. arm

It’s a good day today. His stomach’s full. Been smooth sailing out from Shells Town. Sky’s so cloudless and blue it makes his teeth hurt. Best of all, he’s got his very first crew member with him now. Luffy always knew he was gonna get a crew — it was really the only thing he had to do before becoming Pirate King — but actually finding someone to join him feels so much better than he figured it would. And Zoro’s such a good first too, with his awesome swords and his big plans for becoming World’s Greatest Swordsman, which Luffy didn’t even know was a thing, but it sounds cool as shit and he can’t wait to hear all about it.

Just as soon as Zoro wakes up.

Luffy stretches a leg out, knocking his foot against Zoro’s. “Oi.”

Zoro jerks and gives a muffled snort but otherwise doesn’t move. He’s been like that the whole afternoon, sprawled across the helm and snoring. Which is fine. He can do whatever he wants, that’s what being a pirate’s all about. It’s just that Luffy’s really bored.

Around them the waves rock, calm and bright green. If he looked over the side, he could probably spot crabs scuttling along the bottom of the ocean floor. Or he could watch the horizon for the first sign of land. Before, he would have. But he was alone before. And now he’s not. Now, there’s someone else, someone he can sail and share stories and wrestle and fish and fight with.

Not someone.

Zoro.

He still doesn’t wake up, even when Luffy pokes him in the cheek. Or when Luffy leans over, his neck stretching across the full length of the boat. “Zoro,” Luffy says, loud and slow, right next to his ear.

Zoro’s brow furrows briefly. His eyelids flicker but otherwise stay closed. Sunlight winks off the tips of his earrings.

Coby yapped all the way to Shells Town about how Zoro was known as a demon throughout the East Blue. Luffy’s been keeping an eye out ever since, for a glimpse of a tail or wings or scales, just in case Zoro really is a demon, because Luffy’s never met one of those before. Up close, Zoro looks pretty human, though. His chin is a little shiny and wet like he’s been drooling, which is gross. This close, he can see that Zoro’s nose is bent kinda crooked. There’s a narrow scar that slices through his right eyebrow. The lower half of his face is pink and peeling with sunburn.

Even if Zoro doesn’t end up being a demon, it’s okay. There’s lots of other stuff to like about him already. He’s tough. Stubborn. And he keeps up easily with Luffy and it’s been years and years since Luffy had anyone who could keep up with him. He’s been waiting so long for this, and now that Zoro’s finally here, he doesn’t wanna wait no more.

Maybe if he licked Zoro on his stupid face. Or bit him. Biting might work. On impulse, Luffy tilts his head to one side and bites Zoro on his arm.

It turns out Zoro is a whole lot sweatier than he looks. Luffy groans. He snaps his head back into place and immediately starts wiping the taste off his tongue. But his own hands taste pretty bad too and they don’t got any water with them, only the ocean around to drink. Luffy groans again and spits over the side of the boat.

When he finally looks back, though, Zoro’s eyes are open.

“You’re awake!” Luffy says, pleased.

Zoro grunts. He’s frowning blearily down at his bicep. “Think something bit me.”

“Yeah,” Luffy says. “You’re pretty salty.”

Zoro stares.

“You’re sweaty,” Luffy says. “So you’re salty.”

“ _You_ bit me?”

“You were asleep.”

“What?” Zoro says.

Hm. He’s cool, but he ain’t very smart.

“We’re on an adventure,” Luffy explains. “And you were sleepin’ through it.” He clicks his teeth together for emphasis.

He remembers, too late, that Zoro gets annoyed about these kinds of things. Luffy noticed this earlier, when he tried to put his arm around Zoro’s shoulders and Zoro immediately shrugged him off. And Zoro is definitely looking annoyed right about now — only the corner of his mouth is twitching too. He’s trying not to grin, Luffy realizes, right before Zoro gives up and smiles. He doesn’t really get what’s so funny, but it doesn’t matter. What matters is the way Zoro’s face is slightly flushed, the way his dark eyes are crinkled up at the corners. His smile is small, crooked like his nose, and it surprises Luffy, in a way he doesn’t usually get surprised, how much he likes Zoro’s smile.

“You’re something else,” Zoro says, shaking his head. “All right. I’m awake. What’s up, captain?”

Something in Luffy’s stomach twists, hard and achy. It _has_ been a whole three whole hours since they left Shells Town. “Let’s get lunch.”

“Not a bad idea.” Zoro peers over the side of their boat, at the darting shadows of fish all around them. “You got a fishing pole?”

“Nah.”

Zoro snorts, and he looks even more annoyed, and even more like he’s trying not to laugh. “Figures.” He gets to his feet, drawing one of his swords. “Should be easy enough.”

They don’t catch a lot. Fish, it turns out, are slippery when you try to grab them with your bare hands. Also very, very fast. Zoro curses and stabs so much that he nearly falls into the ocean. Their little boat rocks back and forth, water slopping into the bottom, pooling around their ankles, until Luffy’s dizzy with laughter and with the sea.

By evening, though, there are a couple of skinny salmon, cold and buttery, the juice rolling down Luffy’s arms when he bites into them. Across from him, Zoro grins, bits of food stuck in his teeth, his hair mussed up from the wind, and something in Luffy aches again, briefly, until he crams the last fish down his throat.


	2. ear

The party in Cocoyasi’s been going for hours now. Luffy’s worked his way through several buffet tables, the last of the pain and exhaustion fading from his body. He sits, picking his nose and teeth on one of the few open benches, watching the crowd. All around him, the streets keep on getting busier. People are laughing and crying and a couple old guys even come up to him at one point and try to shake his hand, which is weird. There’s a band, and dancing, and sparklers, and Luffy looks past it all and one by one, he finds his crew.

Usopp’s sitting on the steps of a nearby porch, hands moving wildly, telling stories to a group of kids. Sanji’s helping a woman carry stacks of dirty dishes into the nearby inn. He doesn’t see Nami nowhere, but that’s okay. She can go wherever she wants to now.

Zoro’s not here neither.

The doctor had told him earlier that Zoro needed rest. Well, mostly he was super cranky and he yelled at them both a lot about fevers and learning how to scandalize wounds properly and whatever. But he also said that Zoro needed to sleep and made him stay behind at the hospital and pushed Luffy out the door.

Luffy doesn’t really know much about rest or injuries or being a doctor. What he does know is that Zoro’s missing a really good party, and that it ain’t as much fun as it could be without him here. If he can’t get out of bed, Luffy will just have to bring the party to him. He snatches a bottle of beer, cramming it into one pocket, and then crams a handful of cookies into his other pocket just in case, and heads back in the direction of the little hospital.

Only Zoro ain’t there, when Luffy climbs up on the window sill and peeks inside. Baldy and Sunglasses are still snoozing in their beds, but Zoro’s is empty and his sword is gone.

Maybe Zoro went for a walk or went to take a leak and then got lost on the way back. He’s stupid like that. Luffy slings himself up onto the roof to get a better view of the street but there’s no sign of Zoro even from up here. He jumps to the next rooftop, and the one after that, until he hits the edge of town. Still no Zoro. Below him the party keeps raging. Someone’s started to set off fireworks, but if he went back, Zoro still wouldn’t be there to hang out. It’s been a whole day since they hung out.

Forest, then. Luffy launches himself from the roof into the treetops. The bright, colorful lantern light fades behind him. Air’s hot and soupy out here. Luffy keeps moving, swinging from one tree to the next, past the rice fields, deeper into the jungle.

He’s reached the base of a cliff, right near the sea, when he finally looks down and spots a familiar, Zoro-like shape. Luffy’s heart leaps and he lets go of the branch he’s dangling from at once, tumbling to the ground.

Zoro’s propped up against the trunk of a drooping palm tree. His shirt’s hanging open. His sword rests against his shoulder and his head rests against his sword. He doesn’t look like himself at all. His eyes are tired and unfocused. His face is drained of color.

“Hiya,” Luffy says.

“Hey, captain,” Zoro says, and Luffy sees the way he tries to make himself sit up a little straighter, the way it makes his face go even paler, so he flops down next to Zoro at once. Luffy pulls out the bottle of beer, all sweaty and slippery in the jungle’s heat. Zoro’s flat expression flickers; he looks surprised but also quietly pleased. Luffy likes that.

“I got this for you,” he says.

“Yeah? Thanks.” Zoro pries the bottle cap off with his teeth and beer explodes in a fountain all over the both of them.

“Huh,” Luffy says, intrigued. “Didn’t know it did that.”

“It usually doesn’t.” Zoro says, and suddenly sounds and looks even more tired than before. “Depends. Did you shake it?”

“Only a little,” Luffy says. He licks a splatter of beer off his wrist, in the hope that exploding beer might taste better than regular beer, but it’s still pretty gross.

“You’re an idiot.” Zoro’s trying to sound grouchy about it but he’s smiling. Luffy can tell by his mouth, the way that one corner twitches slightly, when he’s biting back a grin. Luffy really, really likes that smile: the one that hides. He fishes two cookies from his pocket. Luffy eats one — the one that’s slightly bigger and less crumbly — and offers the other one to Zoro.

“They got chocolate chips in ‘em,” he explains.

Zoro gives him a look that Luffy can’t quite read, but he leans over and takes the cookie.

It’s quiet out here. Cicadas drone around them. Luffy shifts a little a closer. It’s not the party but it’s just as good sitting here, watching the few scattered fireflies drift by overhead, one hand playing with the laces on Zoro’s boots.

Next to him, Zoro shifts and begins to pick his bandages off, dumping them to one side in a pile of rusty brown. The cut on his chest was big and wet with blood before. Now it’s pink and raw, crooked with all the stitches in it. It looks like it’d be weird to touch, so Luffy does. He waits but Zoro doesn’t push him off, only sits there, chest rising and falling with shallow breath. Luffy traces the line of the scar slowly, following the seam, the skin hot and bumpy and soft under his fingertips.

Watching Zoro get stitched up earlier had felt a lot like watching Nami stitch up his hat after that big-nosed bastard put a knife through it. These things happen, Luffy supposes: Hats get torn if you ain’t careful, and if you fight, you gotta be ready to die. It doesn’t mean that he wants them to happen, though. Not when they’re only just getting started.

Luffy looks up and Zoro is watching him too. His grip is tight on the hilt of his sword. There’s a hunger in his eyes that Luffy recognizes. It’s the same kinda hunger that he’s felt for years and years and years. The kind of hunger that never really goes away, just lives in his skin, in his bones, gnawing at him always. Seeing it reflected back at him in Zoro’s dark eyes doesn’t make it go away neither. But it twists itself around the ache in his chest, and it makes the hunger into something else. Something new and brighter, sharper.

He’s been hearing Zoro’s words over and over in his head, clear and fierce, even though he was choking on water and blood, even after he had torn like a hat.

It’s the second time someone saw Luffy for exactly who he was. It’s the first time someone ever called him king.

Not someone.

Zoro.

The moon slides behind a cloud and the jungle goes dark. Zoro lets out a long sigh. He puts his sword down carefully, and then topples over into the grass. Luffy topples over next to him. Zoro’s eyes have slid closed. He probably needs to sleep. But Luffy still wants more: of Zoro, of this, of laying side by side in the dirt and hanging out. He’s greedy, and he can’t help himself when people give him things for free, and Zoro gives himself so easily, for Nami, for Luffy, just because Luffy asked him to.

He can’t help it, and he leans in and nips Zoro, right along the ear, his earrings cold against Luffy’s mouth. “Oi,” he says. “Zoro.”

Zoro lets out a very small sigh but he cracks one eye open again. “Quit doin’ that.”

“Doin’ what?”

“Biting me.”

“I gotta,” Luffy says.

“You gotta?” Zoro repeats. “What do you mean, you gotta?”

Luffy doesn’t really know. He just felt like he needed to. “I gotta,” he says again.

Zoro snorts. “Okay,” is all he says.

A breeze rustles the big palm leaves overhead. In the distance, he can hear music. Someone at the party is singing too, high and pretty. He’ll go and see in a bit.

Zoro’s eyes slide closed again. His breath evens out slowly. Luffy pulls up a handful of grass by the roots. It’s wet with dew and a little sandy. Zoro’s hair is the exact same color.

He never noticed before.


	3. wrist

The island where they drop anchor isn’t marked on any of Nami’s secondhand maps. No towns or markets or nothing. But there’s a sprawling beach of white sand, and beyond that, a big green jungle, and beyond that, a scattering of huge sand dunes.

“I dunno,” Usopp says, fiddling with his goggles. “Seems risky. Especially because I was just diagnosed with being allergic to unknown, unmarked islands.”

Sanji snorts and bumps him gently with his hip, on his way to furl the sails.

Luffy, on the other hand, is so excited he can hardly stand it. The anchor crashes into the water and Luffy follows right after it, even as Sanji and Zoro curse and try to stop him. Nami sets up an umbrella and towel so she can lay on the beach. Sanji hauls out a cooler and plates of sliced fruit and Usopp brings his fishing pole when he’s eventually coaxed off of Merry.

Luffy runs ahead, Zoro on his heels. There’s so much to see: the tidepools teeming with fish, and the big cool rock with flecks of shiny mica that Zoro finds and lets him have.

And the dunes, where he and Zoro race to the top, shoving each other the whole way, and Luffy doesn’t win, only gets a ton of sand down the back of his shorts, but Zoro looks so pleased with himself, his skin flushed and pink in the noon sun.

And the giant patch of wild watermelons where he and Zoro sit among the twisting vines and brush and eat five melons apiece. Zoro spits the seeds ten, fifteen, thirty feet and Luffy can’t do it at all, just dribbles juice and spit down his chin, even when Zoro leans in to show him how, his face very close to Luffy’s, his lips sticky and his tongue poking out from between his teeth.

And the beach again, and the giant sandcastle Usopp’s just finished building and the turret that Zoro kicks down. Usopp tries to tackle him, and when that doesn’t work, tries to drag him into the water to dunk him. That doesn’t work either, and Zoro looks back over his shoulder with a quick, wry grin that only Luffy sees.

The tide rushes in, foaming at his feet. Luffy’s toes curl into the sand.

“You’re lucky I’m letting you off easy,” Usopp says, pouting, as they come stumbling up along the shore. He delivers a final, well-aimed kick in Zoro’s direction, sloshing water everywhere.

“Yeah, yeah,” Zoro says. He runs his fingers through his soaking wet hair. His swim trunks sink low on his hips and he shakes his head, doglike, his earrings jingling. Luffy’s stomach goes kind of tight and wanting.

Zoro grabs a beer out of the cooler and flops down into the shade. Luffy crawls over next to him. “Let’s go exploring some more,” he says. There’s still so much he wants to do. He wants to race Zoro back up the dunes again, to see if he can win this time, and then roll down them afterwards. And he wants to find the tallest tree in the jungle and climb it with Zoro and sit together in its branches while the sun sets. And he wants to see which one of them can catch more fish, and after dinner, to see which one of them can catch more fireflies.

“Nah,” Zoro says, rolling away from him. “’M gonna nap.”

“You napped this morning,” Luffy retorts.

Zoro yawns, loud and pointed. Luffy retaliates by sticking his fingers in Zoro’s mouth.

“Dinner soon!” Sanji yells from down the beach, where he’s turning skewers over the bonfire.

“Food,” Zoro says helpfully, flinging an arm over his eyes, to shield himself against the fading sunlight.

Luffy can smell the smoke, and the meat cooking. He wants to go eat, he can feel hunger pounding through him, can feel his stomach practically caving in on itself. He wants to go, only Zoro’s skin is pink and bright all over with sunburn and Luffy can’t stop staring at it, at the way it looks with Zoro’s funny, grassy green hair. He wants to eat, but he wants Zoro to look at him. The roof of Luffy’s mouth aches and he needs to move, and then he is moving, lunging forward to bite Zoro right on the wrist.

Zoro sits up fast, his eyes wide. “You bit me _again?”_ he hollers, his voice cracking, and Luffy can’t help but snicker. Zoro grabs for him and Luffy tumbles backwards, heels over head. He rolls again and jumps up, and Zoro is already on his feet, coming after him. Luffy bolts down the beach, sand sliding under his feet. He’s trying to run fast, only he keeps getting caught up in bursts of laughter. When they’re nearly at the edge of the jungle, Luffy flings an arm out, grabbing hold of a low-hanging branch. He yanks himself up and out of reach and Zoro, who was about to tackle him, slams face first into the tree trunk instead.

It’s a good escape plan. Or it would be, only then Luffy laughs so hard at the look on Zoro’s face that he falls out of the tree anyway. He hits the ground, bounces, and Zoro’s on him. His hands are everywhere, struggling to get a grip on his shoulders and wrists and Luffy can’t stop laughing, and thrashing, and laughing, and biting at Zoro’s fingers.

There’s a hiss of aggravation. “Quit it, Luffy, dammit—”

He gets a hand over Luffy’s mouth. Luffy blows a big raspberry and slobber goes everywhere. Mostly back all over Luffy’s face but on Zoro’s hand too and Zoro groans in disgust. He finally pins him, though, his hands planted firmly on Luffy’s shoulders. “You’re such a shit,” Zoro says.

Luffy grins and wriggles, testing Zoro’s grip. It’s fun, to push and feel someone push back just as hard. “I can get outta this,” Luffy says confidently.

“Try,” Zoro says, and his smile gets a little meaner, with all his teeth. That’s also a good Zoro smile. Luffy’s stomach goes tight like a fist, pinching at the edges.

And then, suddenly, Zoro’s letting him go, jerking back just in time to narrowly avoid getting hit in the head with a shoe.

“Not that I care,” Sanji says crossly, watching the pair of them with his arms folded, “but if you’re done being morons, dinner is ready.”

Zoro snorts, sitting back on his heels. “Yeah, yeah. Coming, shithead.”

“The hell did you just say to me?”

Luffy scrambles to his feet, shaking the sand out of his hair. The tight, weird feeling hasn’t left him. It’s only spread, into his legs and chest, into his throat, making it hard to breathe. He must really, really need to eat. He bolts past Sanji, who’s in the middle of taking off his other shoe, back down the beach toward the campfire. Skewers of meat and veggies are roasting in a grate over the fire and Luffy elbows Usopp out of the way, grabs all ten and jams them in his mouth.

The meat’s hot and juicy, and the veggies aren’t the worst ever. Luffy eats another twenty skewers, as the sky goes dark and the moon rises over the ocean, until he finally feels better. Until he only hurts a little still, in his chest, when he looks across the fire at Zoro, talking with Usopp and laughing, his crooked little grin hiding along the corner of his mouth.

They’re off and sailing early the next morning. The sky’s overcast and Nami’s worried about rain, which means she’s not paying attention to the plate of heart-shaped waffles in front of her. “We need to be ready,” she explains, “just in case we end up stranded in the middle of a storm.”

“I got lost in the middle of a storm once,” Usopp begins, in that Usopp-voice that always promises something good.

“I’m being serious,” Nami says sourly.

“It was dark that night…the sea was treacherous. Fifty foot waves — some almost a hundred feet tall, and I was all alone, armed with just my slingshot and a peanut butter sandwich—”

“Stop whining,” Zoro says, coming in from the deck from lookout. He’s all damp from the mist circling their ship. “Whatever happens, happens.”

“That’s literally the opposite of good navigation,” Nami snaps, furiously stirring her coffee. Luffy snatches another waffle. He shoves a couple pieces of bacon into his mouth for good measure too, as Zoro slides onto the bench across from him. His shirt clings to his chest and stomach. The cotton’s worn so thin, it’s almost see-through in places.

Luffy crams another three waffles into his mouth.

“What happened to your arm?” Usopp asks abruptly, frowning at Zoro. “You look like you got mauled by a shark.”

“I wish,” Sanji mutters.

Zoro snorts. “Somebody decided to turn me into a chew toy.”

For a second, Luffy doesn’t know what they’re talking about. But then he looks where Usopp’s looking, at Zoro’s arms and his wrist and his fingers, at the shape of teeth denting his skin, and the explosion of pink and purple bruises.

“It’s ‘cause he was squishing me,” Luffy protests, trying to talk and chew at the same time, spraying bits of waffle all over the table.

Usopp stares blankly at him. So does everyone else.

Zoro picks up a bit of half-chewed waffle and pops it in his mouth. “They got blueberries in ‘em,” he says, sounding pleasantly surprised.

Usopp makes a very funny, very horrible face. “Those are Nami-swan’s,” Sanji practically shrieks, swinging a roundhouse kick at Zoro’s head.

Nami sighs and shifts further down the bench. Luffy picks up the remaining waffle bits off the table and shoves them back into his mouth. He snatches the rest of the still cooling bacon slices from the plate on the counter too, but it doesn’t help like it did last night. He still feels funny.

Luffy looks again at the bitemarks that he left on Zoro’s wrist. Zoro’s usually hurt, one way or another. Sometimes it’s definitely been Luffy’s fault too, but the bitemarks feel different. They ain’t like normal bruises or cuts. There’s something about seeing the shape of his teeth in Zoro’s skin. Something about the colors, the slightly paler insides of Zoro’s wrists, and the blueness of his veins, and the dark pink color of where Luffy bit him.


	4. right shoulder

Something is wrong with Zoro.

Well, no. Nothing is wrong with Zoro. Everyone in his crew is the best, and Zoro is so good, and Luffy likes him so, so much. Only sometimes, Luffy finds himself staring at Zoro, and that funny feeling will start again, in his stomach and his chest. He doesn’t like the feeling at all. Doesn’t like the way it sits in him, strange and tight and weird, or the way it only seems to happen when Zoro’s around, which don’t make no sense, because Zoro’s great and fun and cool. It irritates Luffy, and so he decides to push the feeling aside and ignore it.

For a while this is easy. The Grand Line is huge and wild and everything he ever wanted. Adventure after adventure waits for them, and the thrill of being out in the world, of doing what he was always meant to do, makes it sometimes so that Luffy can’t hardly breathe.

But sometimes Zoro sneaks up on him. Sometimes he’s there already there, sitting at the table, when Luffy sneaks into the kitchen for a late night snack. He always asks for warm sake and Sanji always complains and then does it anyway—“The shit I do for you”—and Luffy watches, learns the way Zoro never says thank you but always gives a short, fast nod, the way he always does the remaining dishes afterwards so Sanji can finally go to bed.

There are giants and weird rabbits and cherry blossoms in the middle of winter. There’s fights and songs and feasts and hidden treasure and talking monkeys and jet streams that make them fly through the sky.

And there’s the time that Luffy went looking for Zoro after a particularly bad fight. And he was still in the cabin below getting bandaged up, and Chopper was so worried, his hooves were shaking. And Luffy sat and watched from the stairs, how Zoro didn’t apologize, but after Chopper was finished, he sat and let himself be lectured. And after the lecture, Luffy watched the way he touched Chopper’s antlers with the hand that wasn’t broken, the way he stroked his fingers along the curves, his thumb pressing briefly to the little metal brace.

There’s Vivi. And then there’s Chopper. And then there’s Robin. And always, forever and ever there’s the ocean ahead of them, and Luffy sits on top of Merry’s head and tries to take it all in, the adventure he’s been waiting for his whole entire life.

And there’s Zoro, laughing when Luffy’s not ready for it, his head tilted back, the long line of his throat bared. There’s the loud, slurred drawl to his voice whenever he’s had a little too much rum. The lisp to his words when he’s flustered and arguing with Nami. The frown he always gets on his face the nights that he plays shogi with Robin, and the tiny furrow that appears between his eyebrows whenever he’s concentrating very hard.

There’s the way he turns his face away so that no one can see his secret smile, the one that comes slowly, that changes the hard, stubborn angles of his face, makes him look softer, warmer, something that Luffy wants to touch, wants to hold in both of his hands.

And then the feeling resurfaces in Luffy all over again. A feeling that he doesn’t recognize and doesn’t know what to do with. It ain’t hunger, because he’s tried eating it away. Ain’t an injury, because he’s too tough and no one’s hurt him so bad in so long. But it’s there. An ache, somewhere just behind his ribs. Like something stuck in his throat. Like the time he swallowed a bunch of eggs whole at breakfast while Sanji wasn’t looking, and they weren’t cooked yet, and they sat cluttered up, heavy in his chest, making it hard to breathe.

It’s a nice day. Air’s cool. Ocean’s calm. According to Nami’s calculations, they should be hitting a new island in no time at all. Luffy sits on the prow, with his back to the sky and to the sea and he watches Zoro clean his swords, watches his hands, dotted with swollen bubbles of blisters and calluses, as he wipes down the steel.

“Clear skies all night too,” Nami says, as she finishes shuffling a pack of cards and deals them out to Chopper and Usopp and Sanji.

Robin turns a page in her book. “Perhaps I’ll get the telescope out. A nice night for stargazing.”

“If we’re gonna be out on deck at night, I’ll have to make something hot for dinner,” Sanji muses. “Something as hot and spicy as my burning passion for Nami-san and Robin-chan.”

“Gross,” Zoro says.

“You’re gross,” Sanji snaps, but half-heartedly. He’s already lost in thoughts about food. Luffy can relate. “Maybe udon. A sweet and a spicy version.”

“Udon,” Luffy repeats, to let Sanji know this is a very good idea.

“Are there going to be lots of stars?” Chopper asks Robin.

Usopp grins. “Lots of stars? _Udon_ -’t even know.”

Nami gives him a tired look.

“How droll,” Robin says and giggles.

“C’mon, Nami, that was good.”

“It was not.”

“It _was—”_

Luffy doesn’t really get the joke, but he sees the way Zoro snorts real quiet and turns his face away to hide a grin, like Luffy knew he would and he feels that hard ache in his chest again and he can’t take sitting still no more. He needs to get up right now, needs to move and kick and swing. But he also can’t move, and he doesn’t wanna, wants to keep sitting and looking at Zoro still, because there’s so, so much to see.

He ends up trying to do both, and flings the top half of his body up against the mast. Only he gets tangled in the rigging and then he accidentally pulls one of the boards in the crow’s nest loose. And then Usopp starts yelling and there’s a lot of pulling until, with help from Robin’s many hands, she helps untangle him again.

“What were you even trying to do,” Sanji asks, exasperated.

Zoro is watching him too, one eyebrow raised. “Needed to move,” Luffy mutters. And it didn’t help neither. His chest still hurts and his head hurts from trying to figure this stupid thing out. Luffy eats fifty sandwiches at lunch out of pure frustration and then falls asleep on top of Merry’s head.

When he wakes again, it’s cooler out and the sky is growing dark. Luffy rolls over onto his stomach. His gaze drifts, always, to Zoro first. He’s almost finished working out. His shirt is off. Sweat beads along his neck and back, his muscles rippling like water. His face is very serious and red with effort, even the tips of his ears. Luffy wants to reach out and touch him. The need rises in him, jittery and strange, and he reaches back to grab both of Merry’s horns instead, until the wood creaks in his grip.

Zoro puts down the barbell. Afterwards, he always stretches and drinks water. Luffy has learned his rhythms, impatiently waiting for the moment when Zoro’s done with his training so they can hang out again. Only Zoro doesn’t stretch. He turns, his hands on his hips and stares at Luffy for a long moment, and then comes over to join him at the prow. He doesn’t say nothing, only leans in and puts his arm around Luffy’s shoulders.

“You smell,” Luffy tells him.

“Like you care,” Zoro tosses back.

True. Luffy likes the onion-y way Zoro smells after he’s just finished working out. He doesn’t push Zoro off him, and Zoro doesn’t pull away. His arm is heavy and steadying, squeezing just a little. The weight of it makes the jittery feeling in Luffy sink and then disappear. It makes him realize that he’s still gripping Merry’s horns. Reminds him that he’s gotta be more careful with her. That he already forgot earlier today. That she’s been pushed hard lately, and Usopp’s pushed himself even harder, his fingers busted up with bandages. Luffy lets go of her horns at once.

The night breeze is warm and sweet. Usopp found little twinkling lights and Nami's strung them carefully through the branches of the tangerine grove, and the trees are lit up in firefly yellow. From the prow, Luffy can see everybody. Nami’s drawing a map, surrounded by her notes, taking her time. Usopp’s braiding bracelets out of multicolored string, his toolbox propping the kitchen door open because Sanji can’t never stop working, but at least this way he can also talk to Usopp. Chopper’s squeaking excitedly at the helm, as the first dart of silver crosses the sky. Robin laughs and adjusts her telescope — a real laugh, not the small, fake one she was doing before.

There was just the two of them. And now there’s seven, and a couple more still to come, to sail and share stories and wrestle and fish and fight with.

“Everybody’s having fun,” Luffy remarks.

“Yeah,” Zoro says.

Luffy looks at him.

Zoro isn’t smiling. Not even the very small, secret one. He’s just standing there watching their crew, careful and quiet, his face soft in the glow of the trees and the dusty light of the moon.

Luffy watches Zoro watch their crew and feels something crack open inside his chest. 

He suddenly wants to be closer. Wants, more than anything, for Zoro to look at him too. He leans over and nips Zoro hard along the back of the shoulder. His skin is hot and sticky against Luffy’s mouth and he remembers, too late, that Zoro will probably bruise again like when Luffy bit him last time. He doesn’t know what to do with that, only that the crack in his chest suddenly feels so much bigger. Luffy pushes his forehead against Zoro’s shoulder, the brim of his hat crunching a little.

“Luffy?”

“Feel like eggs,” Luffy says, miserable.

Zoro snorts. “You were just drooling over udon earlier,” he says, because he’s very stupid. “Ask the cook, maybe he’ll—”

“No,” Luffy says, and points at his throat. “Feel like eggs.”

“Oh,” Zoro says, like maybe he gets it, like Zoro often does. And maybe he doesn’t get it, and that’s okay too.

Luffy leans back and Zoro’s looking at him. There’s something in his face like he’s waiting, like he’s expecting Luffy to give orders, but they’re not going nowhere and they’re not in the middle of a fight. “You don’t gotta bite me when you want me,” Zoro says at last.

“I know,” Luffy says. “I just wanna.”

Zoro doesn’t laugh at that, but the corner of his mouth flickers. Another star shoots across the sky. A gust fills the sails, pushing them forward, and Zoro’s arm slides down from his shoulders, settling around his waist.


	5. left shoulder

They’re walking back toward Merry and they’re running late because Zoro is very stupid and keeps insisting they’re not lost. Luffy doesn’t really care, he likes when Zoro’s stupid, and also he has ice cream. And it’s because of the ice cream, and Zoro, and the warm night, that he doesn’t realize there’s a problem until he sees the shadow that falls fast and hard across Zoro’s expression and Kitetsu hisses as its released from its scabbard.

Some bounty hunters — or maybe pirates. Or bandits. Luffy doesn’t know.

What he knows is the blood pounding in his ears. What he knows is Zoro grinning at him, and feeling himself grin back, and then his limbs are unspooling, his leg flinging out in a long whip that Zoro ducks beneath easily. Luffy’s foot connects with the side of some guy’s head, knocking him sideways and he hears the low, wet crunch of the hilt of Zoro’s sword coming down hard to shatter someone’s nose.

Luffy turns and drives his fist into the side of another guy’s head and out of the corner of his eye, Zoro’s a streak of darkness, his sword a long, bright arc of light and steel.

Everywhere he turns, Zoro is there, jumping in front of him when he stumbles; every time some guy comes up on Zoro while he’s looking the other way, Luffy is there, knocking teeth out of mouths.

They circle and move, and when Luffy stumbles again, for the last time, Zoro’s back slams up against his own, braced and ready for more.

But the pirates or bandits or whatever are down. The woods are quiet again and there’s only the sigh of the tide, somewhere in the distance; the push and pull as Luffy exhales and feels Zoro inhale.

What’s left of his ice cream cone got dropped in the dirt, but it’s only a little bit melted. Luffy scoops it up into his mouth and then turns, looking for Zoro. He’s wiping the flat edge of his swords off on his pants. There’s blood in his hair and his mouth is peeled back in a smile, in a snarl, and it’s dangerous and mean and hungry.

Luffy’s moving before he even realizes it, flinging himself across the clearing. Zoro catches him easily, with no effort or surprise at all, and it makes that thrumming in Luffy harder, fiercer. Zoro slings him up onto his back and Luffy nips him once, hard, along the back of his shoulder.

Zoro grunts but he doesn’t complain. He lets Luffy coil around him, lets him cling closer as they make their way slowly back toward the ship. Zoro smells bright and sharp like a new coin, and his shirt is soft and worn when Luffy rubs his face against it, listening as Zoro hums tunelessly to himself.

By the time they finally reach Merry, it’s well past dark. Chopper scolds them. Usopp frets. Nami moans about how _this_ is what stupidly huge bounties mean, nothing but more trouble for her. Zoro doesn’t apologize and Sanji snaps at him for it and Robin laughs. Luffy laughs too, and then rockets himself into the kitchen where he can smell chicken and mashed potatoes, because he’s starving.

He finds Zoro again, later. He’s curled up along Merry’s battered starboard side, right where Luffy knew he would be. There’s still blood on his shirt and drying in his hair, making it stick up at the back. His swords are across his lap, his thumb tracing the white braiding along Wado’s hilt. His eyes are closed, but he’s not asleep.

Luffy plummets out of the rigging, landing next to him. Zoro’s eyes flick open. He smiles, so fast Luffy nearly misses it, and then leans down and begins to unlace his boots. Luffy scrambles off to find his innertube and floaty wings, quietly. But not that quietly, because it’s Robin’s watch at midnight and he knows she’ll never tell on them.

He’s back on deck, just as Zoro’s peeling off his shirt, his boots and pants in a heap next to him. The planes of his back are wide, curved with muscle. He’s knotted with scars everywhere else, along his legs and his chest but his back is smooth and untouched, except for the faint teeth marks, at his left and right shoulder. Something turns over, dark and greedy and wanting, in the very pit of Luffy’s stomach.

And then Zoro’s going over Merry’s side, without even waiting for him. Luffy takes his hat off, tangling the cord around the hilts of Zoro’s swords to keep it safe. He jams himself into his innertube and dives over the side too, crashing down into the water. There’s a brief rush as he sinks, as the water closes in over his head and his body goes slack. But then the innertube bobs back to the surface, Zoro gripping the edge of it tightly.

The bay where they’ve anchored is still and quiet. It’s so dark out. The moon’s very skinny, like one of those crescent-shaped cookies with the sugary powder on the top that Sanji sometimes makes. There are so many stars. Maybe a billion stars. Maybe Nami will know how many stars. The water’s smooth like glass, the surface mirrored with dots of silver and when Luffy looks out across the bay, he can’t tell where the sky ends and the ocean begins.

Zoro flips over onto his back, almost disappearing into the black water, except for his chest and his face. He’s still holding onto the edge of the innertube as he kicks gently, the two of them drifting away from Merry.

Luffy watches Zoro, floating beneath him.

He wants this, every day. The kicking ass part, obviously. But also this too: Zoro, when he laughs, when he's snarling and mean. When he's half-asleep, water caught in his eyelashes, his funny hair the same color as the seaweed.

The blood washes away with the water, and the dirt, and the last fizz of adrenaline, until all that’s left behind is a vague ache. It's old and familiar. Luffy's felt it before. When he sits on top of Merry’s head and looks out across the water. Or sometimes after a day of exploring and hunting in the jungles of Mt. Colubo, when the sun was going down, he would walk out to the cliff and look out toward the horizon, and feel it, a whole world out there waiting for him, and he wanted to see all of it, wanted, wanted, wanted.

It’s a little like that.

Only there’s no open ocean ahead of him, and there’s no cliff. There’s only Zoro.

It’s funny.

He can’t figure it at all.


	6. mouth

It’s a cool afternoon. He’s laying sprawled in Zoro’s lap, while Zoro sips a beer slowly. Usopp and Nami are holding a makeshift fashion show. Zoro’s watching them and Luffy’s watching Zoro, and he can just see the edge of the hidden Zoro smile, the one that Luffy’s decided is his favorite Zoro smile. That weird eggy feeling gets stuck in his throat again. He wants to catch Zoro’s smile this time, wants to know what it feels like. Luffy cranes his head up to nip Zoro along his mouth and Zoro catches him by his chin.

“Hey,” Zoro says.

“Hey,” Luffy says brightly.

“I told you to stop doin’ that.”

“Doin’ what?”

“Biting me.”

“You did?” Luffy asks, surprised. “I forgot.”

Zoro snorts. The smile spills over from the corner of his mouth, changing his whole face so that it’s lit up with laughter, unguarded like Zoro never is. Luffy leans in to try and bite his mouth again, and Zoro’s grip tightens just a little more on his chin. His fingers are rough against Luffy’s skin.

“Hey,” Zoro says, and then leans down and nips Luffy’s mouth instead. Zoro’s warm and he smells like beer. Luffy can feel the imprint of Zoro’s teeth in his lower lip.

He likes the way Zoro’s mouth feels against his own.

Zoro starts to pull away and Luffy grabs him, to keep him close. Luffy’s heart is beating fast. He has that feeling, like when he spots a new island, like just before a really good fight, the anticipation of a whole new adventure he wasn’t planning on, right in front of him like it’s been all along. Zoro, with his very dark eyes and his very nice, very serious face.

“Do that again,” Luffy says.

Zoro doesn’t hesitate. He presses their mouths together firmly.

“Again,” Luffy says, and Zoro does.

“Again,” Luffy says, a little squished this time, because Zoro keeps right on kissing him. And Zoro’s laughing, and Luffy’s laughing too. He can feel the shape of Zoro’s smile against his own, and it makes everything in Luffy light up all sharp and sweet and stinging.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is literally the most fanfiction-y title i’ve ever used lmao but it felt like it fit. taken from [ the song “adair” by the mountain goats.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYJI17nED2c&ab_channel=notasfarwest)


End file.
